But Lady Bell had her own part to play. She was ordered to drive out all day, and every day, in the streets and lanes of Peasmarsh. At first when she did so, her relish for the town was impaired. Excited tradesmen, and their apprentices, mechanics, drawers from the tavern taps, street-criers, came round her, cheering or hooting. They cried the party cries which were then rending the nation, “Down with Wilkes,” or “Wilkes for ever,” according as they were tory or whig (Squire Trevor was a tory), as if she were Wilkes, or Wilkes’s wife at least. The mob pressed up to the chariot, and would either have had out the horses and harnessed themselves instead, dragging their future member’s wife with wild jolts and wilder hurrahs, or would have pelted “the machine which held Trevor’s wife” with mingled opprobrium and filth, and Lady Bell quailed before the ordeal. But Lady Bell’s courage merely wanted steeling—she belonged to a class of rulers. Soon she could smile—a pale, handsome, child-like young woman as she was—and look around her unmoved, save by the necessity of graciously acknowledging greetings, whether she were applauded or abused, bowed before or bemired. It came naturally to her, and stimulated her to sit aloft there in her born element of leadership amidst historic feuds. Then Lady Bell was commanded to go into every shop in the town to make abundant purchases, of the most diverse description, from satin to moleskin, from buttons to carriage-wheels, from sheep’s tar to _eau-de-luce_. She was next directed to go into every householder’s dwelling, with her “fellows” bearing after her, from the stuffed and piled carriage, any article that was portable, that Lady Bell might give gifts and bestow largesses, like an eastern princess on her progress. “And see that you show none of your confounded insolence, Lady Bell,” was roared after her by her husband, as she departed on her mission, for between bating and fuddling, in the extreme exigencies of an election, Squire Trevor was fast being driven beside himself. It was a misconception and an untruth that Lady Bell’s airs took the form of insolence to her inferiors in rank, when they did not trespass against her notions of decorum and the respect which she believed was due to her. On the contrary, she was gracious and affable in these circumstances. Lady Bell loved to confer favours; she was in a state of crass ignorance in many respects, knew nothing whatever of the merits of political questions, and had little to say when the people were strangers to her. But her simple smile, her youth and its charms, her rank, went a far way to insure her popularity and promote her cause. It was hers, she was eager for it, she had worked herself up into eagerness even apart from the selfish consideration that Mr. Trevor’s being returned member for Peasmarsh, was the sole chance of Lady Bell’s being restored to her Elysian fields.